1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing system, an image processing method, an image processing apparatus and a control method thereof. For example, the present invention relates to an image processing method, an image processing apparatus, and an image processing system, which allow a digital apparatus that can store images to retrieve stored images after the apparatus is already deployed and in use.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a digital multi-function peripheral (digital MFP) functions as an image storage server that stores an input image to allow reuse of the stored image, since it mounts a large-capacity storage device, in addition to performing a copy function, a printer function, a FAX function, a scan function, and the like. In order to implement the image storage server function, conventionally, upon storing an image, that image is saved in a specific mailbox or directory, and the image to be used is specified using its file name by designating the mailbox or directory at the time of reuse of that image.
However, the capacity of the large-capacity storage device mounted in the digital MFP has been increasing, and the amount of images that can be stored is also increasing. As a result of an increase in image amount that can be stored, specifying a stored image by designating the mailbox or directory faces a limit.
In order to solve this problem, as a method of specifying a desired image from those stored in the image storage server, a method of saving text data together with stored images as metadata, and using that metadata in a retrieval process is known. The metadata can be obtained by extracting character information included in an input image by applying a character recognition process to the image (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-215067). When a PC or the like notifies the digital MFP of print data as PDL (Page Description Language) data, the PDL data is rasterized to obtain a raster image, and a character recognition process is applied to the raster image to extract character string information.
In recent years, along with the progress of image processing technologies, as another method of specifying a desired image, an image retrieval method of using an image as a retrieval target, and retrieving stored images including those which are similar to the retrieval target image using an image feature amount of that image is also available.
However, a conventional digital MFP which has already been available in the market does not employ any novel technologies, such as technologies that perform generation and retrieval of metadata, and a retrieval using an image feature amount, and can only specify a stored image using a file name or the like, as a conventional method. For this reason, effective use of images stored in MFPs that are already in use is not promoted.